Zeros of structured linear systems (Q1805981)

The authors study the transmission zeros of the linear structured systems having the form \[ \Sigma_\Lambda :\begin{aligned} & \dot x(t)=A_\Lambda x(t)+B_\Lambda u(t)\\ & y(t)=C_\Lambda x(t),\end{aligned} \] where the following \((n+p)\times (n+m)\) matrix \[ N_\Lambda=\left[\begin{smallmatrix} A_\Lambda & B_\Lambda\\C_\Lambda & 0\end{smallmatrix}\right] \] is a structured matrix, i.e. its entries are either fixed and null or free parameters. \(\Lambda\) denotes the vector composed on the \(\rho\) nonnull parameters \(\lambda_i\) \((i=1,\dots,\rho)\) of the matrix \(N_\Lambda\). The main matrices which give an internal and an external description of \(\Sigma_\Lambda\) are: the associated system matrix and the transfer matrix, i.e. \[ P_\Lambda(s)=\left[\begin{smallmatrix} sI-A_\Lambda & B_\Lambda\\ C_\Lambda & 0\end{smallmatrix}\right]\quad\text{and respectively}\quad T_\Lambda(s)=C_\Lambda(sI-A_\Lambda)^{-1}B_\Lambda. \] To the structured system \(\Sigma_\Lambda\) a direct graph \(G(\Sigma_\Lambda)=(V,W)\) is associated where the vertex set is \(V=U\cup X\cup Y\) with \(U=\{u_1,\dots,u_m\}\), \(X=\{x_1,\dots,x_n\}\), \(Y=\{y_1,\dots,y_p\}\) and the arc set is \(W=\{(u_i,u_j),b_{ji}\neq 0\}\cup\{(x_i,x_j)\), \(a_{ji}\neq 0\}\cup \{(x_i,y_j),c_{ji}\neq 0\}\) where \(b_{ji}\) (resp. \(a_{ji}\), \(c_{ji})\) denotes the element \((j,i)\) of the matrix \(B_\Lambda\) (resp. of \(A_\Lambda\), \(C_\Lambda\)). It is shown that there exist two types of transmission zeros: the parameter dependent ones and the constant ones which can only occur when \(s=0\). Moreover, the constant transmission zeros can be directly obtained on the associated graph in terms of particular paths and cycles.